


Life's Complexity

by Germinal



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Crack Pairing, Hats and Hardcore Democratic Republicanism, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-24
Updated: 2013-10-24
Packaged: 2017-12-30 09:31:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1016993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Germinal/pseuds/Germinal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marius is more than usually dismayed at the identity of Courfeyrac's latest conquest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life's Complexity

In the weeks since he had been forced to avail himself of Courfeyrac’s spare mattress, Marius had come to realise that his friend and benefactor possessed almost as many metaphorical hats as he did actual ones. The parts Courfeyrac chose to play were many: there were the roles of the student, the rake, the debater, the radical and the dandy – but, as a sort of corollary to that, there was the hat Courfeyrac seemed to wear when giving an appreciative glance at the momentarily uncovered ankle of a shopgirl, which differed from the hat he seemed to wear when eyeing up diffident young men on the walk home from the Palais-Royal. Marius further observed, with unaccustomed wonder tinged with hopeless envy, that all these hats were worn lightly and with equal aplomb. 

Courfeyrac's persuasions were less of a surprise than they might have been. Soon after moving in, while searching in vain for a convenient text on the bookshelf that served his host as a supposed library, Marius had discovered that the shelf contained hardly any material that might be of use to a student of law. The shelf did, however, support not only an uncensored copy of _The Quintessence of Debauchery_ but also several tatty and salacious novels which Marius, after a cursory assessment of their content while he bit his lip in self-conscious consternation, had hurriedly replaced and never spoken of. He continued to give the bookshelf the occasional worried glance, as if it might one day choose to betray his curiosity.

In principle, he had no objection to the matter. He congratulated himself on having swiftly shaken off the influence of his grandfather, who still muttered into the folds of his lace cravat with barely restrained horror on the subject of the Marquis de Custine, not to mention the proclivities of the long-dead Duc d’Orléans. It was not Courfeyrac’s libertine inclinations themselves in which Marius found cause for complaint so much as his habit of indulging them at times and in places seemingly designed to cause the maximum of inconvenience or embarrassment to them both. 

One evening in spring, for instance, when Marius was already exhausted from a day spent wandering in the vain hope of chancing across the girl he had last seen in the Luxembourg, and wished only to settle into an arduous but necessary few hours of translation work, he had entered their shared apartment and found himself playing an involuntary audience to his host and whichever guest he was entertaining in the room beyond this one. The noise was indistinct but unmistakeable. Marius thought of leaving the place again, but could conceive of nowhere else to go.

It was past midnight, and he was half-asleep over his books, when the visitor, a slim young man in uniform, emerged from the bedroom and stooped to retrieve his stiff braided jacket from the floor. Marius, blushing furiously, turned his face to the wall as Courfeyrac’s latest suitor took his leave, and caught only a fleeting impression of blindingly polished regalia and a waxed moustache.

After several more incidents of this kind in the space of only a week or so, Marius felt it his duty to inform Courfeyrac of the dangers inherent in propositioning military men, an activity which he thought must be unwise both politically and on general grounds of personal and legal safety. Courfeyrac insisted, in as blithely careless a manner as ever, that in this case it was he himself who had been propositioned, and, being of a naturally generous disposition, had found himself unwilling to refuse. 

‘And so you simply accepted? Courfeyrac, are you quite familiar with the risks you run?’ 

‘My dear fellow, we run risks of one sort or another every day. I presume you’re familiar with the doctrine of knowing one’s enemy – and with the example from Lyon last year of the National Guard’s defection to the side of the workers? Citizens in uniform are still citizens, you know, just as we will shortly have to form an armed force ourselves without the benefit of uniform. An officer may be as open to the spread of republican ideals as the rest of us.’

Marius stared. ‘Forgive me – but I hardly think I have been kept awake for three consecutive nights now by your efforts to spread your _ideals_.’

After a moment in which neither of them could keep a straight face, Courfeyrac shrugged, his expression still not entirely serious. ‘We all contribute to the advance of the cause in the manner in which we excel, and this happens to be mine. Besides, officers are generally more discreet than the flamboyance of their moustaches might suggest.’

This precise attachment proved unexpectedly, not to say annoyingly, enduring. Marius returned home at all hours to find that same jacket again draped over the furniture, those boots again thrown into the room’s far corner, and the soldier’s increasingly urgent moans and gasps issuing inescapably through the wall, for all that Marius pressed his hands over his ears and stared fixedly at the papers laid before him, trying to concentrate on anything other than the relentlessly rhythmic squeaking of the bedsprings in the next room.

‘I’m afraid he’s very particular about coming back here,’ said Courfeyrac on one occasion, insisting on expanding upon his exploits despite Marius’s attempts to prevent him doing so. ‘In fact, I’m beginning to think that the primary object of his attention may not be me at all.’ 

Marius glanced up, intrigued in spite of himself.

‘Yes – he asks about ‘my lodger’ quite a lot, you know. Forever soliciting information on your whereabouts and circumstances. I’ve told him nothing, since I cannot imagine where his interest in you might lie, but still he persists.’ 

Courfeyrac grinned. ‘It’s fortunate that I try not to be possessive in these matters. Indeed I’d be happy to let you give your own account of yourself, if you’re at all amenable to joining us in – ’

Marius did not let him finish, but made a face which he felt adequately conveyed his feelings at the suggestion, and turned over on the mattress to sleep with Courfeyrac’s laughter ringing in his ears.

The next day brought with it a renewal of Marius’s failure to encounter the enigmatic girl during his solitary wanderings. 

Dolefully returning to Courfeyrac’s building, he passed the young officer on the stairs, a lit cigar between his lips. He looked at Marius curiously, and Marius looked back.

In the other man's face and bearing Marius perceived an odd familiarity, and a slowly dawning recognition filled him with a creeping sense of panic. Proceeding rapidly to the apartment, throwing open the door and seeing Courfeyrac, thankfully in no less than his shirtsleeves, ensconced in an armchair, he wasted no time on preliminaries. 

‘Look here, that lieutenant with whom you’re… who’s just left – I suppose you know his name, do you?’

‘Of course,’ Courfeyrac countered. ‘I’m almost offended that you think I’d find such details unimportant when forming this kind of acquaintance. He goes by the name of Gillenormand.’

Marius, by dint of superhuman effort, managed not to take his head in his hands in despair. ‘Gillenormand, did you say?’ 

His cousin! Of all the absurd coincidences that had so far befallen Marius, this seemed the most insupportable. He sat down heavily in the chair opposite Courfeyrac’s.

‘Gillenormand is my family name,’ he explained, feeling ridiculous. ‘This is intolerable. That man is a relation of mine, and I’m sorry to say that he has clearly taken up with you in order to gather information to relay to my grandfather so that the wretched man may continue his attempts to exert some influence on my life.’ 

He paused to draw breath, and saw that Courfeyrac was regarding him with affectionate amusement from behind his glass of wine. 

‘Ah, yes, I had forgotten that your upbringing and background rivals anything on my bookshelves for convoluted Gothic melodrama. Well, if this is true, so far your relation has discovered nothing - apart from the fact that you now cohabit with a notorious agitator and debauchee. Is this news likely to set your family’s mind at rest, do you think, or might hearing it finish the old man off entirely?’ 

‘Courfeyrac, this is no laughing matter. I’d be obliged if you wouldn’t have him back here again – if you do, I cannot in all good conscience remain here myself.’ 

Still badly suppressing a smile, Courfeyrac gave a placatory wave of the hand. 'Oh, very well – if you wish, I’ll break it off. I suppose these things are always rather short-term by their nature.’

‘Thank you,’ said Marius with a sigh. ‘Please do.’ 

‘A shame in some respects, of course – I shall miss the moustache. Not to mention the -’

Placing his hands over his ears again, Marius managed to succeed in missing the rest of what Courfeyrac would miss.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the kink meme prompt "Courfeyrac/Théodule" (http://makinghugospin.livejournal.com/13775.html?thread=11688143#t11688143).
> 
> On the Marquis de Custine and the occasional risks of importuning guardsmen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marquis_de_Custine
> 
> On the National Guard being won over to the other side in an 1831 strike by silk-workers in Lyon: http://france-for-visitors.com/lyon/the-silk-strike-of-1831.html


End file.
